


Raindrops

by luninosity



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) RPF
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Domesticity, Fluff, Love Confessions, M/M, Showers, Wet!James, worried!Michael
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-30
Updated: 2012-10-30
Packaged: 2017-11-17 09:21:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/550033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When James calls to postpone their date, Michael panics; or, the story in which James has a leaking apartment and ends up all wet and shivery, Michael says I love you for the first time, and perfect moments really can happen anywhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Raindrops

**Author's Note:**

> Based on misadventures with my own apartment, which thankfully is behaving itself now! Title from The Shins’ “September”: _under our softly burning lamps she takes her time/ telling stories of our possible lives/ and love is the ink in the well when her body writes_

Michael'd had a long day. Hours of filming, reshooting scenes because lighting cranes dipped into the shot or extras forgot their cues or the wind was too strong, and he'd tried not to complain because he did love the work, he really did. Appreciated every moment he got to spend creating stories.  
  
But it _had_ been a long day.  
  
He shuffled out to the parking lot. Fished his mobile out of his pocket, while walking. He was expecting possibly one call—James knew he was filming, but wouldn’t’ve planned on him being this late for dinner—and he caught himself smiling, when he glanced at the screen and saw that familiar name, like a promise being kept, James checking in with him.  
  
And then he stopped smiling, because that wasn't one missed call. It was three.  
  
He stood there in the middle of the parking lot, under the dimming sunlight, frozen. Pushed play on the voicemail. There was only one.  
  
“Hi.” That instantly recognizable Scottish purr sounded a little breathless, and a lot annoyed, and something else not as easily identifiable. Embarrassment, maybe? He'd not heard James being embarrassed often enough to know for sure. “So I know I told you seven, for dinner, but, um, I think we're going to have to reschedule, I've had a bit of an emergency—”  
  
Michael nearly dropped the phone. Clung to it, with fumbling fingers, and managed to right it again.

James'd kept talking, recorded voice trying to offer reassurance. “—I mean, not a real emergency, everything's fine, it's just there's water all over the flat, the pipes broke and—you know what, you don't need to know, I'll have it fixed by the time I see you, if you want to see me, maybe tomorrow? Call me when you get this?” And then, because James would always feel the need to apologize for everything that wasn't his fault, “And I'm sorry about canceling on you like this, really, I do want to have dinner with you, so I mean it about tomorrow—”  
  
At which point the recording ran out of room, and the honeyed-whisky sound of that voice, in Michael's ear, ceased. Abruptly.  
  
He stared at his phone for a second. Then shoved it back in his pocket, bolted over to his motorbike, and flew out of the parking lot faster than he ever had before.

He got to James's building in under nine minutes. A new record. He might've been impressed with himself, but instead just sprinted up the creakily complaining stairs and pounded on the solid old wood of the door. It remained sturdily unimpressed by his emotions.  
  
“James?”  
  
A pause. Some surprised-sounding noises. And then the door opened, and quizzical blue eyes looked up, and met his. “Michael—?”  
  
“Oh thank god,” Michael said, and kissed him.

Of course he’d heard James’s message. Knew it wasn’t _that_ kind of emergency. But his heart hadn’t quite caught up to that knowledge, yet. And he needed to touch James. To answer the hint of uncertainty he’d heard, inside all the recorded words: James needed to know that Michael wouldn’t be upset by the change in plans, wouldn’t care if they needed to reschedule, would help repair broken water pipes if James asked for that. Would be there.

It’d only been three months—and two days, his brain helpfully supplied, wanting to be precise—since their first real date, since the night James’d glanced at him, a smile lurking behind the blue eyes, and inquired, “Drinks?” Michael’d said yes immediately, because those eyes and that voice were irresistible, and later had found himself saying yes again, enthusiastically, and meaning it, about everything, about anything James wanted, any time.

They’d not said the words yet, no _I love you_ s, not out loud. But Michael could feel them, in his bones, sunlit truth that would never go away.

He’d give James everything, all the pieces of himself, his heart, if James asked. Because James would hold them, and keep them safe. Because he trusted James, unreservedly, beyond question. The whole universe trusted James, of course. James was that sort of person. But out of all the universe, James had chosen Michael. Sometimes he couldn’t believe that was real.

Sometimes he thought maybe James couldn’t believe it either, from the surprise in oceanic eyes when Michael complimented him, the hesitation when asking him over, the anxiety when plans ended up falling through. Like now.

Obviously he just needed to kiss James more. So that they could both be sure.

So he did. Thoroughly. Until blue eyes drifted shut, for a second, and James smiled, tasting him, melting into the moment, into the kiss. Michael smiled in response, and bit down, lightly, on that tempting lower lip, because he knew James liked that. And then, in the midst of sliding his hands along James's back, stopped. “You're all wet!”  
  
“You didn't notice?”  
  
“I needed to kiss you!”  
  
“Not that I'm complaining, but why?”  
  
“You said it was an emergency. You sounded—”  
  
“I also said I was taking care of it.” James scrubbed a hand through his hair. It stuck to his fingers in clumps. "But...thank you for coming over. You didn't have to."  
  
“Yes, I did.” He found himself staring. Hypnotized. Not just by the fingers, or the wetly fantastic spikes and loops of all the hair, or the water droplets that clung, incongruously innocent, to ginger stubble. James hadn't shaved, and that was mesmerizing, but there was something even more entrancing.  
  
He'd never seen James in a wet t-shirt before. The fabric, already thin, had turned obligingly transparent. Caressed each line, every curve. Made all the cinnamon freckles glow, red and gold against white cotton and faded jeans. James shook damp hair out of his eyes and smiled, and Michael's mouth went dry.  
  
“What…ah…what happened?”  
  
“Oh…a pipe broke, in the shower. When I wasn't home. They came out and fixed it, it wasn't that bad, but I've been mopping up water from…everywhere, actually. So not much time to make dinner, or shower, or…anything remotely presentable. I'm sorry—”  
  
“Don't apologize!’  
  
“But—”  
  
“Seriously, James. Please. It's not as if you broke your flat. Do you need help, with anything?”  
  
“No, I've mostly finished. I have finished, really. I just haven't...” James glanced down at himself. Made a gesture, kind of a hopeless wave, in his own direction. As if he thought he should be embarrassed, still.

“I'm not going to be very good company, honestly. I'm kind of tired. And it was…not a fun afternoon.” But he patted the nearest drying wall, even while talking, a little vaguely. Encouragement. Comfort. Michael might've been imagining it, but the air seemed to grow warmer, as if the walls appreciated the touch.  
  
Of course James would try to reassure the walls. James would try to hug the world, if it needed that, and would tell it, in that luscious Scottish voice, that everything'd be all right. And it would be, because the world wouldn’t dare disagree.  
  
Michael looked at him again, standing there barefoot and dripping and smiling apologetically. Thought, simply, _perfect_.  
  
“James?”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“You did say you wanted to shower...”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“Do you want…company, in the shower?”  
  
“You—seriously? I'm all…wet. And I've been cleaning—”  
  
“You are,” Michael agreed, and took a step closer, and yanked James back into his arms, “all wet. I like you all wet.”  
  
“You do?”  
  
Michael's answer, while not verbal, involved lips and tongue and teeth nevertheless, and left James gasping, flushed and off-balance and leaning against him, happily.  
  
“So…all right, you do. More?”  
  
“Shower?” The freckles did feel a little too cold, the chill of evaporating water lingering, to Michael’s touch.  
  
“Shower _now_.”  
  
Much later, after they’d run out of hot water and Michael'd nearly hit his head on the metal fixtures and James'd left soap-covered handprints on the tile and then had to rinse them off, he tugged James over to the couch. Plopped the closest blanket on top of him. “Wait here.”  
  
“What? Why? Where’re you going?”  
  
“I'm ordering us Chinese food.”  
  
“You—”  
  
“I still want to have dinner with you. Tonight. Tomorrow night. Every night. Clear?”  
  
James looked up at him, tropical-ocean eyes warm, in the amber light. The hair was drying into improbable shapes, and the freckles were comfortable, not shivering anymore. Extraordinary. Ordinary. Like coming home, like the rightness of the world turning beneath them, minor domestic crisis over. Content.

“Yes. Michael?”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“I love you, you know.’  
  
Michael breathed out. Came back to the couch, phone and take-out menu still in hand, forgotten. Sat down beside him. “James?”  
  
“Michael?”  
  
“I love you, too.”


End file.
